Blog Post Module 14

 My perception of evolution has changed quite a bit. Before this course I thought evolution was something of the past not really relevant today. I also thought originally that evolution was super straight forward, you have early life forms and they change into modern ones~ that's it. Boy was I wrong. I learned that evolution is super relevant to life today. Life is constantly changing and adapting even if it's in small ways. The world changes and in order to survive and pass on genes, organisms do as well. Additionally, evolution is not just one thing. It is a culmination of mechanisms working together to produce life the way we see it. Natural selection, mutation, gene drift, migration, and interbreeding only scratch the surface of what goes into this complex topic. Overall, I learned that in science and in life it is important to work critically not just logically. The data might present a theme or a trend but that doesn't mean something occurred that way at all. It is much deeper than just "well that is the easiest and most plausible explanation so it has got to be right". Through the R exercises and discussions in this course I learned to look beneath the surface and really dig into a concept to have the most amount of understanding and growth. I have also learned that it is ok to be wrong. No one truly learned anything from being "correct" all the time. Before this course I was a bit obsessed with knowing the exact explanation and exact answer for everything. But now I can see the beauty in striving to know without always getting a definite answer. The pursuit of an answer in itself lends so much more than memorizing a fact ever could. Some things we may never know, but exploring the possibilities has been a really enriching experience. 

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